Looney Tunes gets a reboot (Part 2): How an iconic cartoon forged a wacky and lovable side of the furry fandom — By Rocky Coyote

by Dogpatch Press Staff

Meet “Toon Furs” in Part 2: Billy the Collie, Clawy the Cat, Chaos Coyote, and Dunhall the Dingo. This story features the side of fandom where you can watch NEW cartoons with classic animal characters, and even turn into one! HBO Max has 80 eleven-minute episodes of fresh-but-faithful animation from WarnerMedia. Furries discuss their influence in this 3-part story by Rocky Coyote. (Rocky previously covered fandom in America’s biggest city on his tag here.)

Billy the Collie is an artist who grew up watching Looney Tunes with his younger brothers. He talks about the flexibility the toon world gives him when depicting his characters in various scenarios.

I do have strong nostagic feelings towards Looney Tunes, and as a result the show has played a significant part in developing my toon persona and toon art as a whole.

Looney Tunes is definitely the king when it comes to executing that classic ‘toon gag.’ The show wasn’t entertaining because it had silly slapstick, it was entertaining because it set-up a comical scene with wit and personality that concluded with silly and creative slapstick. That’s what I enjoyed about the show, and is a big reason why I do enjoy cartoon stuff to this day.

Considering my fursona is a toon border collie, I’d say that it’s had a pretty big influence on me! The creativity that toon-stuff lends me in playing around with the toon physics, effects and logic is highly entertaining as an artist. The toon concepts pioneered by shows like Looney Tunes has also been a fantastic way for me to connect with other furries in the community, as the majority of furries are familiar with a lot of these ideas and concepts so it’s been fun engaging with them on this innocent but silly level.

Despite very clearly being computer-drawn, I do appreciate that the reboot keeps the original character designs rather than going down the current animation trend of using a “Cal-Art” inspired art-style. I do worry that the show will overly-focus on slapstick and cheap throwaway jokes, rather that the wit and personality which made the silly slapstick far more entertaining. But, I think the show is worthy of a chance to prove itself.

Clawy the Cat is a toon artist, and she describes how Looney Tunes was a main fixture on television growing up.

In my younger years, I would watch Looney Tunes pretty much daily. As I grew older I would catch them as I’d find them on TV. Now I just watch them on the Boomerang app when I find the time to.

Looney Tunes had probably the biggest influence on my love of cartoons with Tom and Jerry coming in second. The Wile E. Coyote shorts were my favorite, followed by the Sylvester shorts. Clawy as well some of my other characters are slapstick centered toons. The toon subgroup has felt like its own community.

I honestly enjoy the new reboot. It feels like a present day revamp of the classics as well as the short revival of the 90s.

Chaos Coyote’s character is based off the 90’s cartoon Tiny Toon Adventures, which regularly features the original Looney Tunes characters. He talks about these shows forming an interest for writing toony stories.

I watched Looney Tunes an awful lot growing up. Like, a lot a lot. It was part of my Saturday morning rotation. I’d be up around 6 a.m. just to catch Bugs Bunny and his friends, dropping anvils on each other.

My fursona is based off of a story I wrote based on Calamity Coyote being tasked with keeping an eye on his younger brother (Chaos) while their mother is out shopping in the city. A prototype cartoon script I wrote based off of the Animaniacs sketches “Buttons and Mindy.” Realizing I could create new sketches, and opening new branches for storylines made me want to write even more.

I am exceedingly influenced by Looney Tunes. When I was much younger, animation was my all-time favorite form of media to ingest. I had wanted to become a cartoonist in the vein of Chuck Jones but I didn’t want to draw, I wanted to write them. Short little silly snippets of characters interacting with each other. Cartoons gave to me a sense of visual sight gags, and subtle puns. But mostly, cartoons gave to me a sense of slapstick humor you can’t find anywhere else. Three Stooges and Charlie Chapman are all well and good, but nobody can do slapstick like cartoons can. Specifically, for me, the best came in the form of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner.

I found the new Looney Tunes show hilarious. I hope they bring in a clever mix of slapstick and sharp writing to the table. I’m looking forward to it!

Dunhall the Dingo (aka Prince Toon) is an artist that started watching Looney Tunes at a later age. Nevertheless, the cartoons he enjoyed had an influence on the characters he created.

This might surprise you, but I didn’t watch Looney Tunes all that much as a little kid. I LOVED Tom and Jerry though. I really started getting into Looney Tunes when I was around 13. Still, Looney Tunes played a huge role in shaping my love for cartoons! I was very lonely at the time, so I was looking for other things to watch. Taz-Mania caught my eye, and it made me feel so much better. After that, I watched TONS of Looney Tune stuff. Unsurprisingly, my favorite aspect are the characters, they just feel like real people to me.

My character, Dunhall the Dingo In terms of design was inspired by Stimpy the Cat, but I think Looney Tunes and Taz-Mania overall helped form who he was character wise. As for the new reboot, I’m beyond excited!

Meet ten Toon Furs in Parts 1-3 of Rocky Coyote’s story.

Looney Tunes Cartoons is among the countless shows, movies and features available for HBO Max subscribers at $14.99 per month. A handful of trailers and episodes, however, can be viewed by anyone on WB Kids’ Youtube channel.

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